Perchè mi par vedere a certi segni
Ch’ordisci (Amor) nuovi lacci e nuove faci,
E di ritrarme al giogo tuo t’ingegni.
And afterwards more fully:
Qual darai fine, Amor, alle mie pene,
Se dal cinere estinto d’uno ardore
Rinasce l’altro, tua mercè, maggiore,
E si vivace a consumar mi viene?
Qual nelle più felici e calde arene
Nel nido acceso sol di vario odore
D’una fenice estinta esce poi fuore
Un verme, che fenice altra diviene.
In questo io debbo à tuoi cortesi strali
Che sempre è degno, ed onorato oggetto
Quello, onde mi ferisci, onde m’assali.
Ed ora è tale, e tanto, e sì perfetto,
Ha tante doti alla bellezza eguali,
Ch’ardor per lui m’è sommo alto diletto.
Style of Gaspara Stampa. 13. The style of Gaspara Stampa is clear, simple, graceful; the Italian critics find something to censure in the versification. In purity of taste, I should incline to set her above Bernardino Rota, though she has less vigour of imagination. Corniani has applied to her the well-known lines of Horace upon Sappho.[1153] But the fires of guilt and shame, that glow along the strings of the Æolian lyre, ill resemble the pure sorrows of the tender Anasilla. Her passion for Collalto, ardent and undisguised, was ever virtuous; the sense of gentle birth, though so inferior to his, as perhaps to make a proud man fear disparagement, sustained her against dishonourable submission.
E ben ver, che ’l desio, con che amo voi,
E tutto d’onestà pieno, e d’amore;[1154]
Perchè altrimente non convien tra noi.[1155]
But not less in elevation of genius than in dignity of character, she is very far inferior to Vittoria Colonna, or even to Veronica Gambara, a poetess, who, without equalling Vittoria, had much of her nobleness and purity. We pity the Gasparas; we should worship, if we could find them, the Vittorias.
[1153] ... spirat adhuc amor,
Vivuntque commissi calores
Æoliæ fidibus puellæ.
Corniani, v. 212, and Salfi in Ginguéné, ix. 406, have done some justice to the poetry of Gaspara Stampa, though by no means more than it deserves. Bouterwek, ii. 150, observes only, viel Poesie zeigt sich nicht in diesen Sonetten; which, I humbly conceive, shows, that either he had not read them, or was an indifferent judge; and from his general taste I prefer the former hypothesis.
[1154] Sic. leg. onore?
[1155] I quote these lines on the authority of Corniani, v. 215. But I must own that they do not appear in the two editions of the Rime della Gaspara Stampa which I have searched. I must also add that, willing as I am to believe all things in favour of a lady’s honour, there is one very awkward sonnet among those of poor Gaspara, upon which it is by no means easy to put such a construction as we should wish.